


With a Capital T

by devera



Category: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5089151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And everyone thinks Jacob's the trouble-maker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Capital T

Jacob waited a full three minutes before the man even realised he was there, and when Bell finally did turn and see him, he gasped and flailed comically, tripping backwards against his workbench and then scrambling to catch the strange contraption he had apparently been working on that nearly toppled with the impact. Jacob leaned on the table behind him, watching, and didn't even bother to hide his smirk.

"Ah," Bell said in the next moment as he recovered, and laid the contraption carefully down on its side to avoid knocking it again before turning back around to face him with the beginnings of a smile. "Frye. You startled me."

"Jacob," Jacob corrected, still smirking, and then, "Sorry. What's that?" He changed the subject with a nod of his head at the thing still cradled in Bell's hands. "Some new listening device to help us in our endeavours?"

Bell looked surprised for a moment, as if Jacob asking about what he was doing was almost as unexpected as his appearance had been.

"This?" he indicated. "Oh, no, not at all. This is just an idea I've been flirting with in my spare time. A friend of mine, you see, he's an army surgeon, and we were having a few pints the other night, and he began explaining to me that there's actually only two things that ever kill his patients."

Jacob laughed lightly. "What? Getting shot at? What's the other thing? Not shooting back?"

Bell blinked and then smiled as he parsed the joke. "No, no," he said. "He was talking about the ones that make it into surgery. He said of those that survive the battlefield, what kills them is either looking for the bullet, or not being able to find it. And so, I thought, wouldn't it help him if he had a machine that could tell him exactly where the infernal things were? Then he wouldn't have to go digging about in all that muck. He'd know exactly."

Jacob teetered between impressed and sceptical, as he was starting to learn was common around this fascinating chap and his ineffable inventions.

"A detector for metal," he concluded. "How ingenious. Although it might be more useful still if you could set it to detect better metals than lead and in places other than bodies."

"Oh, yes, well," Bell agreed, bestowing upon Jacob a pleased look. "Such an invention might have a number of applications, now that you mention it. Speaking of which, I've, uh, made you a copy of the rope launcher, so now both you and Miss Frye have one. I've even configured it for the differences in your forms. Now, if I could just find where I put it…."

Jacob watched, a little bemused, as Bell turned back around, plonked the detecting device down on the bench without another look, and began rifling through the assorted, seemingly unorganised pile of parts in front of him.

"Difference in form?" Jacob repeated curiously, easing himself over to Bell's side of the room.

"Well, you're more solid than she is, for a start," Bell began saying, and then paused to drag a box down from the end of the bench so he could proceed to rifle through that too. "Taller. Broader at the shoulders, narrower at the hips. Your centre of gravity would be different. Muscle mass and weight distribution have bearing upon tensile strength and the rate at which the spring spools back in again. Speed of elevation, not to mention the breaking mechanism. Too fast and you'd hit a wall and break every bone in your body." He stopped to wave his plastered arm vaguely in the air, and Jacob made a mental note to find out precisely what had happened there. "Quite the ingenious invention though, really, once you understand how it works. Entirely possible to replica- Ah! Here it is."

He turned, triumphant, only to find Jacob standing right beside him. Jacob smiled again, this time far more easily.

"I believe I'm flattered, Aleck, that you've been giving any thought to my muscle mass and _weight distribution_ at all. Usually the gentlemen of our acquaintance are far more interested in Evie's dimensions than mine, she being the slightly more comely one."

"I wouldn't say that," Bell said immediately, and Jacob smiled a little more sharply at the way his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. "I mean. That is. You are twins, after all."

"That we are," Jacob agreed, grinning. "So?"

"Uh," Bell said vaguely, staring up at him, and it was too easy, Jacob thought. There was hardly any sport in it at all.

"The launcher?" he prompted gently.

"Oh, yes," Bell said quickly. "I've also improved the integration with the blade a little, to suit your-" He stopped and coughed delicately and avoided Jacob's gaze for a moment. "If I can have your hand…"

And as easy as it apparently was, Jacob still couldn't seem to resist.

"You can have anything you like," he said, not even bothering to make it sound anything other than entirely suggestive, and held out his arm, wrist up.

"Hm," Bell said thoughtfully as he stepped in, retrieved a screwdriver from the bench beside him and then bent his head over Jacob's arm to fit the launcher into the bracer's casing. His fingers were deft and light against the inside of Jacob's forearm, adjusting straps and turning screws. "Is this the Jacob Frye without his more level headed sister around to keep him in line then? I dare say you must get yourself into all sorts of trouble."

"Oh, all sorts," Jacob agreed lowly, easing just a little closer without moving his arm under Bell's ministrations. Bell coughed again and the tops his ears flushed pink. "When did you say Evie would be back?"

Bell paused and let out a faint, even breath. "I didn't," he said. "I confess, I left her in a bit of a hurry, to be honest."

Jacob didn't know whether that meant it had been unintentional or not, but quite frankly he didn't really care.

"She's a resourceful lass," he assured with confidence born of long experience. "She'll show up, probably without announcement at the most inopportune time."

"Yet another thing you have in common," Bell muttered.

"Now, Aleck," Jacob chided gently, and laid his other hand ever so lightly on Bell's shoulder. "If you've been trying to say you're not pleased to see me, I've got news for you, friend; you're going about it all wrong."

Bell wasn't tinkering anymore; Jacob suspected he'd in fact already finished. He merely stood for a moment, silent. Jacob let him, curious to see what he would do, say. He watched his face, and because he was watching his face, he wasn't wholly expecting the press of the back of Bell's fingers against his abdomen, under the curve of his elbow. It was a bare pressure, but Jacob felt it as surely as if Bell had laid his entire hand there.

"I am," Bell said after a moment, and not at all like he hadn't expected the words to come out. His hand shifted, brushing his knuckles across Jacob's middle and then – quite boldly – sliding the flat of his palm against Jacob's side under his coat and on down to his hip. "Pleased to see you, I mean. That's all right with you, I take it?"

Bell's meaning couldn’t have been clearer, and Jacob sucked in a tiny breath at the firm squeeze of those fingers on his hip bone and almost let it out again on a delighted laugh. Hardly any sport? He was happy to be considering the possibility that he might have been wrong.

"If you move your hand a little lower and to the left," he answered with his best, most encouraging grin, "You'll discover how all right it is for yourself."

Bell laughed at that, light and sweet, and Jacob would have laughed too, but he was instead all of a sudden drawing in another surprised breath. Bell's deftness wasn't only restricted to gadgets and gizmos, it seemed.

"Ah," Bell said, a little slyly, and it couldn't have escaped him, the slight shudder that traversed down Jacob's spine at the firm touch of Bell's hand against the fly of his slacks. "I remember what it is I fancy about Brits, now."

"Blimey," Jacob breathed, thoroughly pleased with the turn that things seemed to be taking. "I've heard interesting things about the Scots, too."

Unoccupied hand still on Jacob's forearm, Bell pushed – gently, to be certain, but definitively enough and with the kind of intention in his face that Jacob was one hundred percent willing to encourage. The workbench's edge pressed sharply into the small of his back, a minor concern when Bell was now pressing up against his front.

"Well, we should see what we can do to fashion you with a more practical level of knowledge, should we not?"

Jacob opened his mouth to make an answer, or perhaps just initiate the kiss that seemed to be hovering in the space between them, and into that moment of lovely, potential-laden silence, something on the other side of the room went " _click!"._

Bell blinked up into Jacob's face, very close.

"Oh," he exclaimed, and then it was Jacob who was blinking, because Bell was suddenly on the other side of the room, leaning over-

"Jacob! Jacob!" Bell began excitedly, scrambling for his pad and pencil as the clicking of the telegraph continued rapidly. "We're through! Oh, Starrick and his damnable monopoly can kiss my lily white arse! We are in _business_!"

Jacob stared for a moment at the arse in question, imagined it probably _was_ lily white, imagined Bell's skin was smooth and unmarked with scars and that it would feel good in his hands. He even went so far as to imagine perhaps even laying a kiss upon it, just to hear what Bell would say to that. And then he sighed, reached down and adjusted himself, pushed off the bench and crossed the room to stand at Bell's side and watch as the telegraph tapped out its message.

"What's it say, then?" he demanded, as Bell scribbled furiously until the telegraph suddenly fell silent again. "Something about shipments?"

"Yes," Bell said, staring at his notepad, then, "Arriving next week. Henry will need to know about this."

"I'll tell him," Jacob offered. "Ah."

Bell glanced up at him. "Ah?"

"Evie," Jacob supplied shortly, and sighed again. "At least the moment is slightly more opportune."

Bell snorted out a laugh and gave Jacob a most promising look, but by the time Evie was striding into the room, Jacob was standing at a respectable distance, doing his best to appear as if nothing at all was going on. Evie of course took one look at him and seemed to know, just like she always did.

"So," she said lightly as they left Bell's workshop a few moments later and climbed into the carriage she'd left waiting on the street. She thumped on the roof to let the cabbie know they were ready to go and the carriage pulled away from the kerb with a bumping jerk across the uneven cobbles. "You two seemed to be getting on admirably well."

He couldn't tell for a moment whether there was an edge in her tone or not; after all, she had just helped Bell repair the fuses along the Westminster line and she hadn’t done it out of altruism. 

"He's an interesting fellow," he agreed casually.

"Mmm," Evie hummed. "Well, when you do decide to call on him again, perhaps you might let me know ahead of time? Wouldn't want to interrupt anything _interesting,_ now would I?" And she poked him in the ribs for good measure, just in case he actually was daft enough to still be confused about the fact that she _was_ teasing him. He jerked away from her and favoured her with a frown that had absolutely no impact on her mischievous, expectant look. Their carriage wasn't even to the end of the street before Jacob was giving in.

"Fine," he sighed, and, "Ha!" Evie crowed.

"Shut up," Jacob grunted.

"I do admit, he _is_ kind of cute."

"Shut. Up," Jacob repeated. "God love it, and everyone thinks _I'm_ trouble."

Evie just laughed, but she was through teasing him it seemed, and instead leaned into his shoulder as the carriage turned a corner.

"Well, of course they do," she said warmly. "We are twins, after all."

Jacob could only smile at that, and shake his head, and sling an arm around her shoulders as the carriage rattled on.

"That we are," he agreed. "That we are."

**Author's Note:**

> Things that I noticed in the scene after Evie connects all of AGB's fuses:
> 
>   * Bell's somewhat too-hasty explanation for what he and Jacob were doing while Evie was making her way back 
>   * Jacob's look of completely false innocence. Nope. We were totally just doing what he said.
>   * The way Bell's eye's dip down when he talks about procuring another rope launcher. If that's not suggestive I'll eat my top hat.
>   * Bell laughing indulgently at Jacob's bad jokes
>   * Bell waving mostly after Jacob and reminding him to "call on him. Any time"
>   * The entire next scene about the elixir and the totally flirty way Jacob calls Bell "Aleck".
> 

> 
> Of course, it might just be because Bell is excited about the fact that he's found a new cool bro, but hey, if that's what I was going with, would you have read this? No, I didn’t think so.
> 
> I've only played up to Sequence 4 so far. I'm writing to try and curb my obsessive desire to tear through the game without pause, because once it's over, I'll be rather sad.
> 
> Oh and apropos of nothing, you know there's the potential for a legitimate sex-pollen trope in this fandom now, right? Starrick's crazy chemists and everything. Who knows what else those evil Templars have baked up in their Victorian chemical labs?


End file.
